The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1929. MR. MACDONALD’S “FAUX PAS”

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 225, 19 June 1929, Page 10

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1929. MR. MACDONALD’S “FAUX PAS”

Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s reported “bad faux pas of publishing in a Sunday newspaper an article dealing with the Minorities problem in Europe is not so bad as it at first appeared. The article, it seems was written before Mr. MacDonald became Prime Minister and was published without his authority. Though this explanation minimises to some extent the importance of the article, it still remains unfortunate that Mr. MacDonald’s views should have taken the provocative form disclosed. . < . In the course of his article the Prime Minister declared that “uncompromising nationalism is an irritating and dangerous obstruction,” calculated to create either endless Parliamentary deadlocks or dictatorships. The complete breakdown of democratic government in Tugo-Slavia, followed by a dictatorship, were the latest warnings that there would be grave troubles unless Europe s Minority problems were solved in a spirit of give and take. He added that Italy could only function under a dictatorship tor the time being without disturbing Europe.” . A great deal of what Mr. MacDonald says is no doubt true, but, as the London Daily Telegraph points out,, the effect of the publication of his views will be seen in “dramatic repercussions in several European capitals.” The place for the discussion of the rights and the grievances of European Minorities is the. League of Nations. The British Government in that respect is merely a party to the discussion. For the head of the Government to act as Mr MacDonald at first appeared to have done meant the encoui agement of Minorities to look to Great Britain to champion their causes independently, in other words, to interfere with the domestic affairs of other nations. Practically every European State contains a certain percentage of national minorities. Before the War this percentage was very much larger than it is now. The Peace Treaties, however, in the reconstruction of the map of Europe, liberated 19 million Poles, nine million Czechs and Slovaks, seven million Southern Slavs, five million Rumanians of Translyvania and Bessarabia, and some, ten million people belonging to smaller racial groups, such as Lithuanians, Finns, Esthonians, Latvians, Danes, and others. Even so, it is impossible to segregate definitely every national group within particular States. Poland, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia contain from 30 to 40 per cent, of national minorities, and in other countries there are varying percentages of race sprinklings. The Peace Treaties made special provision for the protection of these minorities, but there has been constant trouble at the League of Nations ever since, in dealing with more or less petty grievances. The London Times correspondent at Geneva, in a dispatch reporting a League discussion on the Minorities question last June, quoted Sir Austen Chamberlain to the effect that there was “no intention to create in the midst of a nation a community that would remain perpetually foreign to the national life, but that the aim of the treaties was to secure to the Minorities a sufficient measure of protection and justice to enable them gradually to become merged in the peoples among which they lived.” The difficulty is that that is precisely what the Minorities are strongly disinclined to do. In July last there was an important discussion in the House of Lords on the subject, when Lord Parmoor (the Labour-Socialist peer) contended that there was room for some improvement in the procedure under which the cases of the Minorities were dealt with by the League. In the course of his reply on behalf of the Government, Lord Ctishendun pointed out that any aggrieved minority could present a petition to the Council; it was examined by a committee of three, consisting of the President and two other members, and according.to the judgment they formed as to the justice or otherwise of the petition, they could move in the Council. This procedure was necessary to preserve the treaties from abuse by propagandists, religious or otherwise. As an example of the kind of thing the League is called upon to deal with, The Times’ correspondent above referred to mentioned that many of the matters brought forward appeared extremely small in themselves. For example, there had been two reports about the closing by the Poles of a Silesian school.

These points are mentioned to indicate the extremely delicate nature of the ground upon which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald trespassed. Already there have been protests from the French Press, and it is not unlikely that similar protests will be heard from other quarters. The fact that the article which has caused the trouble was written before Mr. MacDonald became Prime Minister may serve to lessen feeling regarding it, but it will still leave the impression that it represents the Prime Minister’s views. This is most unfortunate at the present time, when the conversations between Mr- MacDonald and General Dawes appeared to be progressing well.